STATE HOUSE ROUNDUP: Time to make some adjustments

By glossy lips or scandals on the Vegas strip, sometimes even the best laid plans can be sidelined.

As the New England Patriots prepared to clash with the Philadelphia Eagles Feb. 4 in Super Bowl LII, there were a lot of bureaucrats trying to channel their inner Bill Belichick last week. Original game plans had to be torn up and halftime adjustments made.

The Group Insurance Commission retreated from its cash-saving health plan consolidation in the face of a withering public employee union defense, while the Massachusetts Gaming Commission contemplated throwing Steve Wynn overboard into the Mystic.

And then New Hampshire energy regulators blitzed the Baker administration's week-old plan to import hydropower from Canada, unanimously rejecting a critical permit needed for Eversource and HydroQuebec to build an underground transmission line through the White Mountains.

If you were Gov. Charlie Baker, a few days on the slopes in Park City, Utah, might be required, and fortunately for him that was an option. It was time for "Option B."

She wasn't wearing a hoodie, but Group Insurance Commission chief Roberta Herman came before a Senate panel, headset in hand, to take responsibility for the "havoc" she helped create with a poorly communicated plan she said would have saved the state and employees money on their health insurance.

Instead, the commission the next day voted to retreat from its consolidation of health carriers and reinstated Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Tufts Heath and Fallon Community Health as insurance options for hundreds of thousands of public workers and retirees.

The new plan, which would still curtail the options for a select group of retired teachers and elderly retirees, is now projected to save about $1 million instead of $21 million, which incidentally matches up with the $1.17 million the GIC spent on an outside consultant -- Towers Watson -- to manage its reprocurement process through December.

While the GIC's near-full retreat came to a conclusion last week, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission is just beginning to figure out how to respond to the Wall Street Journal's reporting on allegations of sexual harassment against casino mogul Steve Wynn.

"The people of Massachusetts have a right to know what the hell happened here," Gaming Commission Chair Steve Crosby said bluntly.

The Wynn Boston Harbor casino was supposed to a be glistening monument on the Mystic waterfront to the promise of expanded gambling, but instead of counting down to its 2019 grand opening, there is now doubt creeping in that it will open at all.

In light of the allegations, the Gaming Commission has opened a new investigation into the suitability of Wynn and Wynn Resorts to hold a gaming license in Massachusetts, and investigations bureau director Karen Wells has already confirmed one damning piece of evidence -- Wynn, on advice of counsel, failed to disclose in 2013 to state investigators that he had privately paid out a $7.5 million settlement to a manicurist who accused him of sexual misconduct.

Commissioners refused to engage in the game of what-ifs as they reconsider Wynn's suitability, but implicit in their comments was a hope that Wynn Resorts would make it easier for them by forcing the company's namesake out before Massachusetts has to.

If Massachusetts does have to pull the red carpet out from under Wynn, it could be a major setback for casino gaming in general.

More than six years after lawmakers went all-in, the slot parlor in Plainville is all the state has to show for expanded gaming. MGM plans to open a resort casino in Springfield later this year, but gaming plans for the southeastern region of the state are still largely hypothetical.

The state's 2016 renewable energy law may be younger than the casino law, but the first major step forward has already encountered turbulence.

It was just recently that the Baker administration and utilities announced the selection of Northern Pass to deliver more than 1,000 megawatts of renewable hydropower to Massachusetts. And then New Hampshire regulators stepped in threw up a stop sign.

Eversource plans to appeal the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee's unanimous decision to deny Northern Pass a permit, but the administration may have to start considering alternative projects to deliver new clean power.

The setback also comes as the state is closing in on the separate selection this spring of a developer for an offshore wind farm -- another slice of clean energy on Baker's "combo platter." Wind energy doesn't exactly have a track record in Massachusetts of being an easy sell either, whether land-based or offshore.

Delays, of course, could hurt the state's ability to meets its carbon-emission-reduction targets, not to mention its energy needs as ISO New England has begun to sound the alarm about a looming energy crisis where rolling blackouts would not be out of the question without new supplies -- green or fossil -- to meet demand.

Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley stepped forward last week to meet demand of a different kind.

Pressley, the first black city councilor and a rising Democratic star, presented herself as the right woman at the right time to meet a demand in the electorate for new, progressive voices -- the key word being "new."

Pressley announced that she would challenge Democrat Michael Capuano in this year's primary for the 7th District Congressional seat, which covers Somerville, Cambridge and parts of Boston. It's one of the most reliably Democratic seats in the country, and Capuano has been a reliably progressive vote for his constituents.

But in Pressley's estimation, she's ready to step up, even if that means knocking Capuano down.

"I don't think someone has to be woefully awful for you to stand up and raise your hand to say that you have a different approach, and lens, and voice to lend to the same issues," she told WBUR radio.

The primary contest, which Capuano referred to as a "family fight," is a rarity in Massachusetts where waiting your turn is the norm, and it has the potential to divide Democrats.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has already said he will endorse in the race, and though he declined to say who would get his support, he heaped praise on the incumbent.

U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy, on the other hand, did it the old-fashioned way, waiting for Barney Frank to retire. And despite his pedigree, since winning his seat in 2012 he has largely kept his head down.

That changed Jan. 30 when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tapped the young Kennedy to deliver the Democratic Party's official response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address.

In front of a live audience at a vocational school in Fall River, Kennedy took his turn delivering a speech that has ruined, or at least stunted, the careers of more-experienced politicians.

And by most reviews, Kennedy held his own, hitting some uplifting, but still-defiant, chords, his lips glistening in the camera light.

Quote of the week: "I can tell you the overwhelming majority of incumbent legislators are going to be re-elected in 2018, most of them without opposition, even if they vote to put a price on carbon. The only existential threat to elected officials is modest in a few purple districts. We want to be respectful of those threats, but they don't apply to most of us who aren't even going to have opponents." -- Sen. Michael Barrett, on why lawmakers should not fear a vote on carbon pricing.